Why more single women will now pursue a married man

Time was when loyalty to their sex meant few single women would pursue a married man. In our aggressive 'me, me, me' age, that's changed. No wonder so many wives feel insecure ...

This summer I have been to a number of 40th birthday parties and weddings - all of which were second marriages - and have left each one increasingly irritated.

Foolishly, I had not anticipated quite how my status as a 40-year-old single divorcee daring to socialise alone would mark me out to every married woman as The Enemy.

I have always been sociable and outgoing, and it never occurred to me that in chatting, laughing or debating with a married man whom I might have known at university or through work - while their wife was standing nearby, for heaven's sake - I was committing an unforgivable social crime.

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Well, now I am in no doubt. I have endured withering looks from some women and been cold-shouldered by others. And I have been left alone like some kind of social leper at dinner tables and on dance floors as the men with whom I was talking or dancing have literally been dragged away by wives who refused even to acknowledge me.

When that had happened at the fourth wedding in a row, it finally clicked that in the current social climate a single woman on her own at a gathering of middle-aged married couples is seen as nothing more than a threat to be repelled by women who evidently do not trust their husbands to behave themselves.

At first, I was appalled at such aggressive tactics. What's happened to old-fashioned good manners and generosity of spirit? Isn't it polite when you see a woman on her own to encourage your partner to talk to her or even dance with her?

And besides, why do they flatter themselves that every singleton must be interested in their husbands?

I had to remind myself that the fault didn't lie with me, but with them.

Why are today's married women so insecure, clingy and proprietorial?

Have they really lost the trust most wives once instinctively felt in their relationships?

It struck me that in most areas of life we expect others to behave the way we do ourselves: were these wives thinking to themselves that if they were single the first thing they would do would be to try to get their claws in someone else's husband?

I rang up my girlfriends and railed against what seemed to me to be the shattered sisterhood, in which women no longer look out for one another but instead see themselves in competition - emotionally, physically and financially - with every other woman.

But there was no sympathy to be had. Instead, my friends laughed and metaphorically shook me by the shoulders as they told me to wake up.

Didn't I know, they asked me, what it's like to be married today? To have actually got your hands on a good man - even had children with him - at a time when the dating game is a hellish shark-pool of hopeless men and desperate women.

To be such a wife immediately makes you a target, they told me - or at least it makes your husband a target, for predatory women. Forget my somewhat naive assumptions about the traditional courtesies extended to single women at a social function, the truth seems to be that too many single women simply no longer respect a wedding ring on a man's finger.

The old proprieties surrounding marriage have been swept away by the aggressive 'must-have' attitude of an awful lot of modern women.

The consensus, according to my friends, was that female emancipation - and the social, economic and sexual freedoms that have gone with it - have led to a liberal world in which nothing is sacred any more. Women are out for what they can get - and if that means another woman's husband, then so be it. At a time when one in three marriages fails, the thinking seems to be that to ruin one or two more unions in your own pursuit of happiness won't make much difference.

There are said to be six million single women in Britain today, many of them wanting not only a great figure and good job, but also a great guy - and that has led to the old notions of sisterhood being thrown on the scrapheap in an unseemly rush for satisfaction.

It is a new kind of civil war between women that is going on while the

traditional sex war drags on in the background.

One woman I spoke to, Susan Flemming, 42, a stay-at-home mother of three from London who is married to a successful banker, says: 'There has definitely been an increase of predatory women out there. Fifteen years ago, when I was single and on the dating scene, you never thought of going near a man if he was married or even had a girlfriend.

'As soon as you saw a wedding ring, he was to be discounted.

'Now, it's totally the opposite. I spent the summer with a newly divorced woman and three married couples. She was 35, single and on the prowl, and she was all over the married men. She sat on the beach and openly flirted with all our husbands, including one whose wife was heavily pregnant.

'We wives found ourselves forced to become a coven, protecting our men from her advances.

'There is no sense of sisterhood any more. Women have become tougher in the business world and as they are used to getting what they want in the office, they now think that they can get any man they want, too - it has become one more thing in the list of achievements which a highflying modern woman aspires to.

'Also, because there are so many divorced women out there now, they refuse to be pigeon-holed as hopeless singletons to be shoved in the corner like maiden aunts.

'These divorcees want new experiences - and by that I mean new lovers - and they increasingly feel they have some kind of right to go for what they want, regardless of the outcome. This makes hackles rise among married women.'

There are, of course, other factors contributing to insecurities experienced by married women.

Widow Alison Sharman, 43, who has a six-year-old daughter and works part-time in IT, says that she believes that the issue of working women versus stay-at-home mothers has contributed to female insecurity. 'I don't think the idea of wives fearing single women like me is a new phenomenon, but I do think that a combination of hitting middle age and being at home is exacerbating the issue for a lot of wives.

'A breach of trust seems to develop in many relationships, and it is a lot to do with women feeling their husband is not as interested in them as they used to be.

'For example, if a woman has been staying at home to raise her children, and then at a party sees her husband talking to a career woman who seems fresh and interesting, she will feel terrified.

'There is this sense among a lot of wives that they are waiting for this kind of thing to happen, and they think: "Aargh, here she is," '

Like me, though, Alison feels that most married women are overreacting. She has been on her own for four years since her husband died.

'As a widow among a group of friends, you are immediately seen as predatory. You almost feel you should wear a badge saying: "I'm on my own but I just want some innocent male company."

'I'm aware that other women find me threatening purely because I'm a forty-something single woman, so I always end up asking a wife's permission if I can dance with her husband at a party,' says Alison.

Frankly, I find it insulting to have to do any such thing, but psychologist and agony aunt Dr Pam Spurr says that this is simply a sign of the times in which the institution of marriage has become so devalued that most wives are painfully aware that a wedding ring on their husband's finger will no longer work on a single woman like garlic on a vampire.

'Singletons have to be aware of married women's vulnerability,' she cautions. 'It has become inappropriate to flirt with a married man.

'Fifty years ago, it was seen as harmless because everyone knew that the vast majority of husbands simply wouldn't stray. Now, adultery and divorce are everyday occurrences.

'I think this sense of intense rivalry between women is getting worse. Female emancipation and sexual freedom have led women to believe that they can go for what they want - including any man - regardless of responsibility.

'This is the worst side-effect of such freedom, because without responsibility it wreaks havoc, and the result is that women are hurting other women.

'Because divorce is so easy and quick - and no longer carries the social stigma it once did - married women feel increasingly threatened. It is becoming an incredibly divisive issue between women.'

The example of a female friend of mine, Jane, illustrates this all too well. Aged 45, with two teenage sons, she was recently left by her husband, a property developer, after 18 years of marriage for a woman 15 years younger than her.

Of course she was heartbroken, and grieved for her marriage. But after several months, when the emotional scars began to heal, what emerged was a much tougher woman - one who had suffered at the hands of a predatory female, and was beginning to realise that she was willing to behave in the same way if it would make her happy again.

Jane admits: 'In the past I would simply have ruled out having a relationship with a married man, but all that changed after another woman took my husband.

'In fact, I'm having an affair with a married man right now.

'What happened to me has served to make me more single-minded to go for what I want. I no longer believe in any sort of sisterhood. A woman has betrayed me and, sadly, I don't feel any loyalty to other women any more, in the sense that it used to be us against men.

'I think women are increasingly tough and have developed a "life is too short, if I want him, I'll have him" approach.

'Everything in life seems to have become throwaway, including one's marriage, and this is part of the cultural changes we're living through. I used to believe in the sanctity of marriage but not any more.'

How sad that women's behaviour towards other women has caused such bitterness. I'm not saying men are not culpable - because they are always involved when adultery takes place - but, interestingly, no woman I talked to blamed them.

They are merely seen as weak and gullible in the face of overt female flattery, and if they succumb, it's simply blamed on a mid-life crisis.

So, as the sanctity of the traditional nuclear family disintegrates before us, the worrying side-effect appears to be that many women today have few qualms about breaking up a marriage themselves.

'I think this is only going to get worse unless we have a sea change in relationships,' concludes Dr Pam Spurr. 'Increased adultery is eroding strong relationships, and until people take marriage more seriously and don't look for an easy way out, women will increasingly perceive other women as a threat.'

What an irony that after decades fighting for parity with men, we women seem intent on turning our guns on ourselves.